Post Archive by Month

Parts of the western United States and Mexico, Brazil, and East Africa now face wildfire seasons that are more than a month longer than they were 35 years ago. The longer season in the western United States is attributed to changes in the timing of snowmelt, vapor pressure, and the timing of spring rains — all of which have been …

Water use and energy demands are starting to collide, nationally, a crunch that National Renewable Energy Labs (NREL) analysts are studying. Most people don’t recognize that the energy sector is the largest user of water in the nation, withdrawing more of this resource than any other industry. Given the effects of climate change—shifting historical weather and precipitation patterns—water is becoming an …

James L. Powell, director of the National Physical Sciences Consortium and whistleblower on climate change denial, has a mission to bring media and readers up to date on how many scientists believe people cause climate change. The anthropogenic climate change number is larger than you might think. Dr. Powell has examined titles and abstracts of more than 24,000 peer-reviewed scientific …

On Saturday, July 25, 2015, Germany got 78% of its electricity from renewables. That performance eclipsed the old record of 74% set in May 2014. How did the country do that? First, July 25 was a Saturday, a day when most of Germany’s industrial operations are idle for the weekend, so electricity demand is lower. Second, weather in the north …

Get ready to hear conservatives critical of EPA’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) and climate action start using the poll-tested words “technology” and “innovation” over and over and over. This cross post from Joe Romm of Climate Progress tells you how and why: For instance, Bloomberg BNA just interviewed GOP presidential contender Jeb Bush about the CPP and his own energy, environment and …

Tom Steyer, who spent $74 million on political races in 2014. He announced that for candidates to receive his support in 2016, they must offer policies that would lead the nation to generate half its electricity from clean sources by 2030, and 100 percent by 2050. Former Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland, who has made climate change the center of …

As in California and nine Northeast states, CHINA: Market-based mechanisms are being used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in China. The central government’s 12th Five-Year Plan called for emission trading programs. Since 2013, seven carbon trading pilots have been established, while other jurisdictions are creating voluntary programs or scaling up their efforts in expectation of the launch of a nationwide …

Today’s electrical grids are often burdened with an excess of inflexible baseload plants, operating under rules that encourage their continued use and within markets that fail to properly price flexibility. Transitioning from today’s grids to more nimble, responsive grids with high levels of variable renewable energy (VRE) will require new policies from lawmakers and new technologies from innovators. In general, …

By next year, a quarter of the world’s carbon emissions will be priced in some way. Businesses that now emit carbon pollution for free (or cheap) will soon see their costs rise. In other words, carbon pollution is a business risk. It’s a bubble that’s going to pop, probably soon. The Carbon Tracker Initiative has popularized a term for this …

Last month, conservative North Carolina businessman Jay Faison launched a $175 million campaign to persuade Republicans to take climate change seriously. I didn’t think too much of it, but I recently came across the website for ClearPath, Faison’s nonprofit advocacy org, and it’s a really impressive piece of work — accessible but also deep, drawing on serious, nonpartisan sources like …